My attempt to make it to my 10 acres in Terlingua Ranch and make a go of living on it. From the start it hasn't gone good at all, but I'm hopeful things will turn around!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Like a Rock / Fridge / Party

Got the decking on and it is solid as a rock. Several of us have jumped around on it and no bowing or sagging at all. I intended to start framing up the walls this morning, but came up with a more pressing thing to get done and by the time I got finished the wind was way too high to mess with it. Maybe tomorrow?

A few days ago I went to Dennis' to pick up a door and noticed he had this little fridge setting up on a shelf in the storage building. I asked him how much for it and actually got it for free. Its small, but works like a champ. Matter of fact I could use it for a freezer because it went down to 20 degrees while it was set on Max. I now have it turned up to maintain 36 degrees. It only pulls 66 watts so no problem running it off the 750 watt inverter.

Unfortunately though the DSL modem was rebooting every time the fridge came on so that came out to about every 8 minutes. To fix that I brought in an old car battery, used one of the small inverters and a trickle charger to keep that battery hot and plugged the modem in to it. The trickle charger only pulls 9 watts so that isn't bad. The fridge only runs about 1/3 of the time so that is good to.

Some of the gang throwing tomahawks and knives again at last nights party.

Inside the legion. I took more pictures, but they either turned out too blurry or dark to post.

I think someone will eventually modify a Mitsibushi Mini Split Heat Pump for direct DC input and find it perfect for solar. Some models are very high efficiency through features like an inverter driven variable speed compressor. Add good insulation in your new building (spray foam on 6 sides) and you could have optimum heat and cooling for zero grid energy costs. Mini splits are relatively pricy especially compared to a window unit but are very quiet, reliable and do not require a wall opening other than the freon lines. The results would be impressive and your place might be the new hangout for all the single women in the area....plus a business opportunity in the desert...

BF, hate to hear about the rain again. None here so far and I hope there won't be until I at least get the cabin dried in. Maybe tomorrow, but today is supposed to be worse than yesterday and that was high wind and a sand storm. Gust yesterday were supposed to be 40 MPH and 50 for today. I may be hiding out in the tank because this trailer was really rocking yesterday. Saw a video clip of a trailer something like this one tumbling over several times yesterday near Odessa so that sure didn't do much toward keeping me from worrying about it happening to this one. Just talked to Ring and he said the one that blew over was one of my cousins.

OGR&D, the fridge could stand to be bigger and I'll probably get a bigger one one of these days, but its working well for now. At least now I can keep a few groceries in there and some meat in the freezer.

Here's a link to one nearly like it for $113. (First one)http://www.jr.com/product/productListing.jsp?Ntt=Avanti+Compact+Refrigerators+&JRSource=GAW.Avanti.NA.AVA-RM4551B2.NA.NA&gclid=CNyG0cnj9a4CFcHJKgod-iTFKA

I'm building the walls on 24 inch centers and using all 2x6s, but the link was useful. I bookmarked it and quiet a few other links to videos that came up when I watched that.

The trailer has been blocking a lot of the west wind so I've been out marking plates for the two 12 foot walls, but now the wind has shifted to more out of the north, is blowing a lot harder and its getting colder so I guess I'm through for the day.